Fraud Gang Posing as Korean Broker Arrested in Thailand

A fraud gang posing as a Korean financial brokerage was arrested in Thailand, and all of the members are Korean nationals. It was reported that the criminal gang attracted investors with discounted dividend stocks exclusively for institutional investors.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s financial crimes, 11 members involved in the illegal operations have been transferred for prosecution, and nine of them have been taken into custody.

Since mid-August last year, the fraudsters have been carrying out illegal activities targeting retail investors in Thailand by soliciting them through social media platforms, as well as posting false advertisements online claiming to provide investment information for free. In order to find more victims, they obtained a database containing 284 Korean phone numbers. Police are investigating how they obtained the database.

They claimed to be employees of legitimate securities companies and said that the victims could invest in initial public offerings (IPOs) at below-market prices.

_{A photo released by police on May 9 shows a member of an investment chatroom scam being apprehended. Based in Thailand, the group posed as a Korean brokerage firm and lured investors by falsely claiming they could provide institutional dividend stocks at discounted prices. [SEOUL METROPOLITAN POLICE AGENCY]}

The scammers also wrote scripts and set up scenarios to dispel doubts for convinceing them. Victims suffered losses ranging from 1 million won to 15 million won.

The Thai authorities launched a crackdown on the sixth day after the scam began. The Korean police believe that the Thai' actions prevented significant losses.

It is reported that investigators recovered 22.76 million won, of which 22.61 million won was returned to the victims.